Dear School-runners (a mini-rant)

If you have left your car more than a few inches from the kerb you have not parked well. If you have left it in excess of a foot from the kerb you have not technically parked at all. Rather, you have abandoned your vehicle in the MIDDLE OF THE SODDING ROAD...

While we're at it, did the spawning cause you to lose all ability to use mirrors or indicators?

...And I'm not going to dwell on your apparent need for a faux-four-by-four, simply in order to manoeuvre your obese offspring to the school gates

Amen. I almost got taken off recently by a forgein lady in a 4x4 at approx. 3:20pm, bearing in mind I was doing 20mph in a 20mph zone, she overtook and cut me up real bad before slamming the brakes on, stepping out and what I assume is picking her child up, as she did park outside a school...

Dont start me on the school run drivers.
One mother insists on parking just outside the school gates in a freshly repainted yellow cross hatched box.
Another bloke insists on parking his car on the pavement (dropped kerb for people with mobility issues, I assume) blocking where we have to cross the road at the school gates. Took him to task, and his reply? "Its a dropped kerb, I can park here". I give up, I really do.

Ok, here I go.....
Lady on her own,good driver. Ladies together,a collective panic sets in. Must be pheromones or something.

Thanks for your sexist BS

People do seem to leave all sense when they do the school run. I got hit by a non indicating car turnin right into a road entirely on the worng sid eof the orad.....aparently it was my fault for having a bike....th epolice saw it differently.

I live opposite a primary school and get to witness all this first hand if I am at home during the week. The school has great big FO yellow Do Not Park Or A Child Will Die lines painted outside. But those don't apply to mothers in 4x4s if they are running a bit late and leave their hazard lights on, didn't you know that.

LOL in regards to hazard lights, myself and my dad got overtook recently in the city streets by someone in a VW golf with hazard lights on. Switched them on before making the manoeuvre then switched them off after coming back infront of us. As if this makes it OK

I live 200m away from a primary school fortunately I leave before and arrive home after the carnage! If I work from home it would be comical if it wasnt so dangerous and inconsiderate.
Many of them simply stop in the road and leave their cars ! IME the majority of them are also overweight so maybe their is a lesson for them to learn.
They can park quite easily a few hundred metres away and walk but few of them do.

I got abused on the school run this morning. Decided to drop my daughter off on the way to work (a rare thing in itself), and about a half mile from school so she can walk the rest, and avoiding the school run mania.

I pulled up across someone's drive, and just as I did the mother and junior-school daughter appeared out of th efront door. Given I was stopped for approx 20 seconds whils my daughter got out of the car and closed the door:
Mother appears out of front door and gives me a look.
She then runs to car, jumps in a starts up before duaghter gets in.
Slams car in reverse as daughter gets in with hand on horn.
Reverses upto 3ft away from my car as my daughter jumps out of the way.
Hangs out of her car door f-ing and blinding (in front of both our kids and others walking past) saying she's got to get to work.
I pull forward and let her out.

Total delay time approx 5 seconds.

I gave her a nice wave and get the bird in return. I was fuming all the way to work, but in retrospect I find it both quite amusing and shockingly depressing that someone else is starting their day as aggresively as that. I just hope she doesn't have a customer-facing job.

If it wasn't fr the fact my daughter had already opened her door, I would have pulled forward anyway.

I work round the corner from a school. They turn up well before 3pm to stake out their parking spaces for when the kids kick out at half-past, and sit there with their engines running too. Then they clog the road up for a good twenty minutes trying to get out with their inept driving and stupidly huge SUVs. The local residents staged a protest a couple of months ago, they had placards and blocked the road and everything, it was grand.

Makes me laugh. Where mine go to school is a narrow road which is double parked the full length only allowing one vehicle through at a time.

Every couple of weeks the school send a letter out pleading for people to be a bit more sensible and stop all trying to park right outside the gate.

If we're in the car, me and the kids always park 3 or 4 streets away which is traffic-free, then just stroll down, laughing at the idiots having Mexican stand-offs, trying to force their way through in their 4x4's. Its an awful lot quicker, not to mention a lot less stressful, just to walk round.

I think the root cause of the problem is that some adults have effectively lost the use of their lower limbs. The idle bastards! They're sending a great message to their kids

As a Brit who drives a car on forgein (sic) plates, I'm genuinely interested in this attitude because I happen accross many pr1cks in an typical driving day. It's even more disturbing if this attitude is coming from a teenager.

One of the worst offenders I ever saw was a School Dad. I came home just as school was getting out (big mistake) and right outside my house (not moaning about that, it's a public street, just to be clear) a big MPV parked at a diagonal to the kerb, in an humungous space you could have put two cars in, so kind of half the car was sticking out in the road and the other half was in the middle of two spaces.

I double parked thinking I might have a word when they got back with the little dahlinks, and park in one of the spaces. A couple of minutes a huge big guy comes back with 4 kids under each arm "sorry about that Hen" in strong Glaswegian accent.

Discretion being the better part of valour and cowardice being the better part of discretion I kept my mouth shut. But next time he's getting a strongly worded note on his windsreen. Yes thats right, with capital letters so watch out Big Yin !!

I live in a cul-de-sac that, from the entrance in, has a road going off to a school. our street has right of way and the road to the school is a give way. The amount of idiots that come flying out (and not exactly hanging around either) without looking is beyond me. My favourite has to be the "i've stuck my hand up, i'm not looking at you, can't you see my hand? I'm indestructible" gesture.

I came home one day to find a woman half parked in my drive with her 7 seater mini-bus. I flashed at her to get out of my drive, she gave me the universal "I'll just be ten minutes" gesture, I parked my car in front of hers so she couldn't get out then walked into my house making the "i'll move it in twelve hours" gesture......never had a problem after that.

Common theme here, children. However best I've seen is parking both sides of a single lane road bumper to bumper for 200 metres. So no where to go when cars at a both ends trying to get past. Idiots.

Also why is it that kids need to be picked up at 15:30? Surely this doesn't fit in our modern society where both parents are generally working? It seems daft to me and cause's pointless disruption to peoples days.

Surely it would be better to have kids in school from 08:30 for a nice gentle start to their day and then they would be ready for class starting at 09:00

Normal school till 15:30 then from there the kids stay in school but can dress down and the formalities are relaxed. During the time from 15:30 till say 17:30 the kids can use the schools facilities to do "homework" in a fair and even environment or other after school activities such as sports or music etc.

Seems fair to me. I used to stay after school loads to play sports or finish of technology projects it used to be great fun.

Other things, parents can remove kids from school after 15:30 if they want too.

This is a big problem where my daughter goes to school as well - not sure why as the catchment area is less than have a mile from the school so nobody would be outside easy walking distance when their eldest child first went to the school although lots of people do seem to move to ensure a senior school place.

There is one guy known as "Angry Dad" who really lets the parking offenders have both barrels. Last week he was standing in front of some womans Chelsea Tractor outside the school gates waving his crutches at her whilst she blasted the horn at him. At some level it is amusing but I could easily see it escalating. Apparently the guy has been going off the rails - lost job, lost wife, run over by a car - so he is probably using this as a release.

He tends to be a figure of fun to many of the car driving mums but I have some sympathy for him.